sail your ships around me
by callmesandy
Summary: Taking out student loans was the best decision Joey ever made. (Pacey/Joey)


For Fmnds. Title and opening quote from Nick Cave's Ship Song. not mine, no profit garnered. I have no idea why Joey was so opposed to student loans, this was before they were all so bad!

* * *

 _Come sail your ships around me_  
 _And burn your bridges down_  
 _We make a little history baby_  
 _Every time you come around_

One of the smartest decisions Joey ever made was dropping her idiotic objections to getting student loans for her first year at Worthington. Bessie had taken her aside and said, "Are you stupid? Are you really planning to throw away the chance of a lifetime because you somehow think you can't do the work to pay this loan off?"

Joey had made a face and was prepared to argue more. Bessie kept going. "When you get your degree, were you going to sit on your ass and stop working? You work harder than anyone. We can make this work so you're not drowning in debt and you can still go to your school."

She'd told Pacey and he'd said, "Bessie's not wrong. You've worked so hard to get this, Jo, don't throw it away on some principle I don't even get why you're holding on to."

So she'd given in. She'd had a moment, right there, a moment of thinking she'd been so right, but then turning around and thinking she'd been wrong. She and Pacey talked a lot around that one and other things. It was a good development, they needed to have real conversations. They kept talking through prom and she even got to hear about all of Pacey's insecurities. It was good, it had been absolutely good. She celebrated when they heard for sure he would graduate.

He wanted to take the Dean's offer. To sail for the summer. "I'll be back in Boston right after," he said. "Just like I promised, where you go, I go."

"We can do this," she said. "I, for one, work harder than anyone in the world, right?"

They couldn't quite do it. Pacey kept in touch while he was out at sea, and then when he got back to Boston she was busy at school. He wanted to go out again, on another yacht. There was a phone call with lots of shouting and another one a week later. Then he was in Boston and they actually talked and had a nice, sane break up and promised to be friends, for real. Pacey almost immediately moved to New Orleans.

He worked more jobs in New Orleans than she did in Boston; he had jobs on charter boats, in restaurants, as a bouncer even. Some of the work, she suspected, was not completely legal given Pacey's vagueness about it. She got the impression the next time she saw him in person that some of the bouncer work involved women who were independent contractors in sex work. She was worried, a little, that Pacey was having sex with them, or one of them. She couldn't compete with that, she'd had sex with only two guys after Pacey. He smiled at her, though, and she stopped thinking about other people, period.

He came up to Boston or Capeside every few months, sometimes they had awesome ex sex, as Audrey named it, and sometimes they didn't. He looked different every time, not like fundamentally changed, but his body looked slightly different, always older than the butterball from age 13 she sometimes pictured. He'd been short and chubby like Dawson when he was 13. Then both of them shot up a foot and got skinny.

He always looked good naked. Once, she'd even had a boyfriend, but she felt like if the relationship was really worth it, she wouldn't have slept with Pacey, so the other guy was only her boyfriend until she got on the phone after making love to Pacey. He watched her on the phone and then laughed. "I can't believe you were dating someone, Potter."

"Not dating him now," she said. "If it were real, I wouldn't have just done that."

"That's a nice justification for cheating," Pacey said. "You've changed with your new flexible morality about sexual mores."

Pacey said it was great being away from Capeside, he could be himself and no one had made their mind up who he was when he was five. She got that, viscerally. it was the kind of thing Dawson or Audrey or Jen didn't know, not the way Pacey did. Capeside was so small when you weren't a golden child. She could be anyone in Boston. She wasn't a failure or the child of drug dealer, or poor little Joey. She was another woman walking around, wherever she wanted.

Mostly. She was also working two jobs every semester and doing freelance work whenever she could. Writing, editing, she even tried graphic design. She also studied web design because it was even more freelance work available.

She was honestly disappointed when Pacey moved back to Capeside right after his mother died. She went to the funeral, like Dawson, Jack, and Jen. Pacey mostly talked to Jen, which made Joey jealous because she was 21 and unbelievably petty.

"Joey, your mom was wonderful," Dawson said. "Pacey and Jen have a lot more ambivalence."

Not that it mattered, because Joey had a boyfriend and he was great. She was totally over Pacey.

Pacey stayed in Capeside. He cooked at Leery's, did handyman stuff at the B&B and, according to Doug, other houses around town where people couldn't afford the help. "Typical Pacey," Joey said. "You know that, right, Doug?"

"I do, actually," Doug said.

Pacey and Doug had taken their small share of their mother's inheritance and started day trading. "Except we only trade every other day, or once a week," Pacey said. "We're doing pretty good so far."

"Really?"

"Thanks for the contemptuous really, Jo, that really wounds a guy. But yes, we are doing pretty good. We're not going for big paydays, we're going for long term. We're going to make enough that when we cash out half we can buy the Icehouse and I can have my own restaurant," Pacey said. "It's a plan, anyway. Maybe that works out."

"I think it will," Joey said, in her serious voice. "I hope so, because we still own the land, so I think me and Bessie would get some money from it."

Joey had worked her ass off, at school and elsewhere. Between her work and the money Bessie had set aside that wasn't used for improvements, they nearly had enough money to pay almost all of Joey's first year loan. The other three were much smaller, but they were still there.

Pacey and half of Capeside came to Joey's graduation, even Jen and Jack, since their graduation was the next weekend. "Shit, Pacey got hot," Jack said. "Is he, like, working out a lot?"

"Helping repair homes for older people and poor families," Jen said. "How sexy is that?"

"Still straight, right?"

Joey said, "Last I checked, he still has sex with women. Maybe he's expanded his prospective bed partners. You can totally ask, Jack."

"Don't think I won't," Jack said.

He didn't, of course. Especially after Pacey talked about his new girlfriend, some waitress at Leery's.

After graduation, Joey moved back to Capeside, too. "I'm disappointing myself."

"How, exactly?" Pacey was feeding her in the kitchen of Leery's Fresh Fish. It was fantastic food. Pacey Witter, great cook. Lots of adjustments, she thought.

"I didn't want to come home, you know. But if I live with Bessie, and work as a waitress again, that, along with my freelance work in web design, and writing and editing, I should be able to pay everything off in three years. Then I'm free."

"So you never stop working your damn ass off, and in return, at age 25, you can do what? Half ass it? Travel?"

"All of the above," Joey said.

Bessie had expanded the B&B three times; two little cottages with their own bathrooms, an additional bathroom in the house, and a new little room in the back. The little room fit a twin bed and a desk and it was all Joey's. She shared her bathroom with Alexander, Bessie and Bodie, but at least none of the guests. When the cottages were empty, Joey took one of those. But they were booked nearly year round.

Whenever she needed to, she drove into Boston to meet with clients or make presentations. Mostly she worked from her tiny room or one of the cottages. Joey did some research and got Pacey to help her install much better and faster internet.

It was funny being back in Capeside. It wasn't as confining as she expected. But it was wreaking havoc with her dating life.

Jen had a miscarriage and it turned out she had a lung issue so she was in the hospital, being miserable. Everyone had driven up to visit, Joey had passed Pacey her way in. Jen said, "Please, talk to me about anything else but me. I can't take it."

"What if I want to talk about my love life?"

"Please, please," Jen said. Jen's boyfriend hadn't shown up once near as Joey could tell. Jen deserved better.

"See, I wonder if this whole putting my life on hold to make sure my loans get paid off experience is making me putting other things on hold. Even in Capeside, I should be able to meet someone, a guy, and not just settle for some half-relationship with my high school boyfriend," Joey said.

"Which half of the relationship are you getting?"

Joey smiled. "Not that half, not for a while. I mean, we're like best friends and he flirts constantly. With me. With everyone, frankly. Sometimes he even sleeps with them. But not me. And I go out when I have time, and I meet guys, and nothing comes of it because I never feel that way I felt, I feel with Pacey."

"It's Pacey," Jen said. "Commit. Admit to yourself he's your one, and act on it. That's my sage advice. As someone who never picks a winner, I can tell you, Pacey is a winner. And he's never gotten over you."

"I don't know that for sure," Joey said.

"But you do," Jen said, laughing. "Thank you for the distraction."

Two nights later, she very specifically took Pacey to a bar halfway to Boston. It was a bar and a lodge. She had made plans. Pacey said, "Did you already rent a room? Are you making a move on me, Potter?"

"Depends on how you'd respond to that," Joey said. "Even if you say no, we still get to drink somewhere other than the same four bars we always go to."

"How I respond," Pacey said. He was looking her straight in the eye. She loved his beautiful eyes and his stupid nose and his baby fat cheeks. She was pretty sure she was going to die waiting for him to answer.

He leaned forward and kissed her, his arm around her waist pulling her close. "What else did you think I would say?"

The room at the lodge was actually really nice. It had a huge bed. It was worth diverting a little money from her student loan repayments. It was completely worth it.


End file.
